Beginner's Guide to ESPHome ESP8266, ESP32, Beken Devices and more

[@thosharmon5901]

Your videos have saved my rear-end so many times. A lot of the others just read through the docs and "blah, blah, blah" you do death, but you actually tell what you're doing (or not doing!) and why. Thank you very much.

[@digiblurDIY]

Nice!! Glad to see it helps!

[@philippe5394]

Hello, I'm in the taming phase of Home Assistant. I've enjoyed following the instructions to the letter, so I've learnt a lot and it's helping me to become more and more at ease with the mysteries and power of Home Assistant. Thank you so much!

[@digiblurDIY]

Nice! Glad to hear things help

[@francescovanni4218]

Thanks for the video. I am Italian and I had to watch the video with the Google translation, which is quite painful, but since you explain well and simply I was able to understand. Thanks again and have a nice day.

[@digiblurDIY]

Yeah I can imagine it having issues on converting my accent over.

[@alexanderpopov3587]

Amazing style of explaining fairly complex things very practical and simple. Following your tutorial I was able to setup a whole Home Assistent+ESPHome system in an hour. Now the fun starts!

[@digiblurDIY]

Awesome job! Glad to hear it helps

[@JAAPOP8]

As a Tasmota addict I avoided ESPHome for years. I also hated the HA guys for a while when they took it on board.... But a while ago I got stuck with an HVAC-application and successfully went the ESPHome route. Your video helps me to better understand the system. Thanks!

[@digiblurDIY]

Awesome. I still use both myself and use what works best for the project. Great to know both.

[@JAAPOP8]

@@digiblurDIY In the title you mentioned Beken Devices. Did I miss that?

[@digiblurDIY]

Nope, all the same since ESPHome supports it as of a few months ago.

[@digiblurDIY]

digiblur.com/2023/08/19/updated-tuya-cloudcutter-with-esphome-bk7231-how-to-guide

[@iseswiki]

Wonderful video, I just had a hiccup getting onto the network, (installing windows drivers). Love the pace and the positivity!

[@digiblurDIY]

Awesome!! This does remind me I need to do some follow up stuff on ESPHome. I got a bit sidetracked with things.

[@chrislambe400]

Cool video. I use my NodeMCU ESP32 board as an FTDI adapter. Just connect EN to GND to stop it booting and connect the TX, RX, GND and 3.3V pins to another ESP board and flash away. Might have to reverse TX and RX but it works every time. My cheap AliExpress FTDI board cannot deliver enough power so I have to get inventive.

[@digiblurDIY]

The voltlink cp2102 will spoil you for any application like this.

[@oscarmauriaca5904]

Thank you so much! I was thinking about making my own wifi button to turn off all the smart lights in my house and this was a perfect starting point.

[@digiblurDIY]

Glad I could help!

[@jimbrewer5821]

Great video Travis. Very helpful for those just getting into ESPHome, as well as an updated refresh for us that have used it in the past. 🙂

[@digiblurDIY]

Thanks! Definitely a lot of new folks jumping in with the Cloudcutter stuff and it is definitely different from Tasmota.

[@WoottonRivers]

This is a great video for getting started with ESPHome. I'd like to see more like this.

[@digiblurDIY]

I do plan to dive into some more aspects of things. Thank you!

[@venjsystems]

Great intro, I've got a couple of esp32's and an esp8266 floating around and I've been holding off learning ESPHome until I had some projects to build. This was exactly what I needed.

[@PatrickBeaudoin]

Thank you VERY MUCH for that video! I watched a lot of those but it’s always scratching the surface and just make it work without really explaining the why. Good job! I don’t do that really often but you clearly deserve a patron donation for that work. Thank you again!

[@digiblurDIY]

Glad it helped! And many thanks!

[@kostasa8895]

Great Great Great tutorial, Travis. The only which can walk a newcomer through to understand the basics. Thanks !!!!

[@digiblurDIY]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@andymok7945]

Thanks for a great tutorial. I have been playing with EPSHome for some time now. I did a new style project a couple of months back. I added LED strip lighting to my IKEA cabinets. My first project that required to use switches and not just sensors. Did some reading and looked at the example to figure it out. Even got a default LED brightness level coded. Having the transition feature for lights is great. When I get time, I want to add code for a rotary encoder so I can change the brightness level and a few more things and have it shown on the OLED screen I have added as well. I have seen some example code for multiple pages for display stuff and it make my last two working brain cells hurt.

[@digiblurDIY]

That is the big key to things. Baby steps and don't try to do this stuff all at once. Keep building on top of what you learned.

[@geoffreycoan]

That was a great walkthrough, very timely for me. I’d setup one esp Bluetooth proxy using the prebuilt setup, bought a second one and I couldn’t install it as I’d been sent an ESP8266 board not an ESP32. Through your video I was able to install esphome on the board, get it on my network, and found I couldn’t BT proxy as these boards don’t have BT on them anyway 😣. Will have to find some other use for it now

[@digiblurDIY]

Yes. You can swap to esp32 for the BT Proxy.

[@aliancemd]

Very good guide, all cleared up without me knowing anything about ESPHome before this. As a guy who worked on firewalls though, not enthusiastic about the suggestion to not use passwords on devices sitting in the LAN - most people say "do as I say, not as I do" to simplify the tutorial but still suggest passwords. People should use a password manager. Unless people isolate all IoT or LAN devices from each other, it's quite easy to get into a LAN through other devices and use the "LAN" devices(most have access to internet) for a botnet(most common use-case).

[@digiblurDIY]

Yup. Isolation is key here.

[@aliancemd]

​@@digiblurDIYIt is key but most users don't do it, they just have 1 WiFi SSID and connect devices to it. Using a Password Manager is not a lot of work

[@Mark-pl2qo]

Please use a resistor with your LED!

[@oceanz55]

Great Travis! Thank you for this as it is exactly what I needed. Are you going to continue with these tutorials expanding on ESPHome? It would be much appreciated!

[@digiblurDIY]

That's the plan! Continue to dig a little deeper into things.

[@mr.bianchirider8126]

Thank you. I am considering switching from using Arduino IDE and Blynk to ESPHome/HA due to the lack of support for the air monitoring sensors and would like to put my SmartThing lights/smoke detectors on the same app.

[@digiblurDIY]

ESPHome is pretty great that you don't have to code a lot of things. I used to build all my stuff from scratch too and it has been nice to shift my time to other aspects of DIY projects and such.

[@uSlackr]

Good starter video - thanks!. The docs and the ESPHome discord are great resources and do simplify getting started. Perhaps calling this as simple as cut & paste is underselling it. You will appreciate how it works if you take the time to understand. It will help make future devices go faster and help you with debug.

[@digiblurDIY]

Right. You don't have to understand how to write it to be a pro at it, just read it and make it work. You can copy and paste all the fluff needed is what my point was on that.

[@RiccardoAzzolino]

THANKS !!! love it. It helps me go further.

[@digiblurDIY]

Glad it helped!

[@222inverter]

Great video Travis, always good to show the basics as Home Assistant is constantly evolving.. great for new beginners.

[@enzodevitdevit1470]

I LOVE U, THANKSSSSSSSSSSS. U RE THE ONLY ONE THAT HELPS ME WITH A PROBLEM

[@Razor_Burn]

Thanks for sharing this great tutorial mate!

[@digiblurDIY]

No problem 👍glad people are learning things

[@jorgegomez374]

You should star a series on esphome.

[@digiblurDIY]

Indeed! I do want to continue and move on to setting up some sensors, drivers etc that people will run into on typical household devices

[@jorgegomez374]

I started using zigbee, only have 2 wall switches and 2 motion sensors. My motion sensor always goes offline, why do not know. So I am planning on making esp32 sensor instead. Thanks

[@davidtjac]

Hi Travis, great tutorial. Can you for example add Bluetooth proxy to your light example there or does it have to be standalone?

[@digiblurDIY]

Yes. It would need to be esp32 based though.

[@davidtjac]

@digiblurDIY I understand it would need to be ESP based, but is that yes, it is possible to add a Bluetooth proxy to an existing, for example, ESPCam, mmwave,etc ?

[@ronm6585]

Good stuff Travis. Thanks.

[@fjdelahoz]

Well done !! . I enjoyed the video.

[@digiblurDIY]

Thank you!

[@nicolasrabate991]

This a very welcomed tutorial, thank you very much. As always very clear and pleasant to view. I've been experimenting Tasmota a Tuya ME81H thermostat device. I replaced the MCU by an ESP12s to get it working. But I'm not totally satisfied because I cannot get the PI module working as a replacement to the very basic thermostat. I'd like to switch to ESPHOME provided that I can successfully set-up the TuyaMCU climate component as well as the PID component. Do you think this is achievable?

[@digiblurDIY]

Is it using a secondary MCU?

[@stefang4706]

this video taught me a lot, thank you very much

[@digiblurDIY]

Glad to hear that!

[@OveKarlsen-tb2ou]

Hi. Can I use multiple one wire sensors like the DS18B20?

[@digiblurDIY]

Yes even multiple are supported esphome.io/components/sensor/dallas

[@OveKarlsen-tb2ou]

@@digiblurDIY 👍☺️

[@colormaker5070]

I am new to ESPhome and tried to install on an ESP32Devkit 1. It seem to load program fine and I see the ESP32 on dashboard with green online, but when I try to see logs or update it cannot connect via WIFI. I ordered a few ESP8266 and will give them a try.

[@hafey80]

thanks

[@anthonycalia1317]

Nice Job!

[@JohnKiniston]

I’m your intro at 18 seconds in or so, you are flashing a device via pins, can you link me to the hardware you are using?

[@digiblurDIY]

BDM pins kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmHSaaGDl9aCiaM

[@vaughanza]

Question, pls help I am getting this error : WARNING Can't connect to ESPHome API . I see my device on the router but not in ESP home. Seems to have problems with ESPHome API. I followed and deleted the API key like you. Thanks for great video

[@digiblurDIY]

Have you tried it using the IP address?

[@richardscarlett7942]

Hi, Great videos, ty. Im new to all things smart home. Can the BTF-LIGHTING 5in1 WB5 2.4GHz WiFi BluetoothPWM LED Controller be flashed, removed from the cloud? I hace searched for information on this and havent been able to find anything.

[@digiblurDIY]

Pop open the controller and see what chip is inside

[@richardscarlett7942]

ah, ok, i need to have one in hand first. I was hoping to know before I buy one, but Ill go ahead and buy it so i can find out what chip is in it. I didnt see it in HA Esp data base. ty.@@digiblurDIY

[@jamegrabham9992]

Thanks Travis...I have flashed Tasmota for the last several years on all my switches and plugs, etc... and I have gotten very use to it...p.s. I have watched your videos for at least 4 years (first switches were Kule)...is there and advantage of ESPHome? Is it easier to "flash" a device with it rather than Tasmota? no soldering?...I understand the ESPHome doesn't require a MQTT broker?

[@tin2001]

More or less the same difficulty to get flashed the first time - if you need to solder for Tasmota the first time, you will for ESPHome on the same devices (unless you already have Tasmota - you can usually flash ESPHome from Tasmota's web interface). ESPHome doesn't need MQTT for Home Assistant, but can use MQTT if you need to for some reason (eg if you want to use it without Home Assistant, or need to interoperate with some other system, or just prefer to stick with MQTT instead for some reason). Tasmota plays better if you want to run without any automation server. I have an outdoor light that uses Tasmota's coordinates based sunset/sunrise functionality to switch on at sunset and then turn off at 11pm every night. This would be harder to do with ESPHome where it lives because there's no HA or ESPHome server at that location. ESPHome seems to be better if you've got a bunch of very similar devices with matching configs (other than their names) because you can create one yaml config for the base device and include it, and just change the device names. Like if you bought 20 of a specific model of light bulb, and they all need to have the same GPIO settings, same wifi SSID, etc.

[@digiblurDIY]

The flashing part is the same for manual processes of ESPHome or Tasmota. You can do the OTA Cloudcutter process for newer Beken devices but Tasmota doesn't support those chips were ESPHome does. There are so many differences between the two and it really depends on the project for which one I'm going to use.

[@psubo3b]

Really great, practical videos - Was able to convert Cloudfree RGBCW bulb w/Tasmota to ESPHome with much of your help. Now, although the conversion appears to work as expected within HA, the bulb will no longer respond to AC wall switch as it did under the Tasmota direct firmware - What needs to be included in the ESPHome firmware for wall switch control? (Can the bulb be damaged through experimenting - Wrong pin assignment etc?) Thanks!

[@digiblurDIY]

I doubt it would be damaged. You do need to set it up with the right driver or PWM assignments.

[@psubo3b]

@@digiblurDIY Thanks for the reply. As mentioned, bulb works OK for everything (RGB, CW, WW, soft On/Off, etc) EXCEPT power On/Off from wall AC which makes me nervous about experimenting. Can you point me to another bulb w/esp8266 setup where the firmware install code specifically addresses switch power to specific pins?

[@digiblurDIY]

@psubo3b not sure I understand the AC off?

[@psubo3b]

@@digiblurDIY The Bulb is in a ceiling fixture controlled by standard AC power wall switch. Under Tasmato firmware (outside of HA) the bulb would turn On/Off when the wall switch was toggled (Yes, I understand that with AC Power Off the bulb is Offline). After conversion to ESPHome the bulb no longer responds to that same wall switch control. So somehow, other than "color" control etc which works OK, the firmware installed code is missing something for support of AC power switch - BUT I'm concerned that experimenting (Sonoff S31 "binary sensor" and "switch" code) MIGHT send 120 volts to a wrong pin in a way that could cause damage... (Not sure other bulb firmware examples online seem to not contain any AC On/Off code - Many other bulbs must be in sockets where Users want simple switch control.) Thanks for trying to help!

[@digiblurDIY]

@psubo3b are you keeping power on the device all the time? I do this with Tasmota switches and bulbs and let the relay stay active all the time and the wall switch sends commands to the light over device groups. Best of both worlds thing.

[@ronhurtt4412]

Great video and information. I am, however, running into a problem. When I attempt the install wirelessly, I get the following error. ERROR Connecting to my-test-device.local:8266 failed: [Errno 113] No route to host. I also cannot get the logs wirelessly or get visit to work (I get, "This site cannot be reached". I have validated my network ssid and pw in secrets and it is correct. Could this be because I'm not running HA/ESPHome over ssl?

[@bblitz8]

Their is so many esp32 and 8266 on Amazon which one is it to use? I tried the links and it doesn't take to a single one but a page with it and almost all have something different about it.

[@digiblurDIY]

There's not really just one. It all depends on what you are doing. I can suggest one model to you after that.

[@thebatu89]

If devs could get espnow working on beken (bekennow?) that would be awesome. Or probably external component for matter.

[@digiblurDIY]

I know they were working on a few things with BT too but not sure. I do know that device groups is working with it on an external component which is pretty cool.

[@markstanchin1692]

OK I am confused because I am working with a iFan 4 and I flashed the esphome on it so it has the basic config, and now on wifi so do I paste a yaml template to that yaml or something? So just to confirm I’m trying to install a configuration yaml file from GitHub for the iFan4.

[@digiblurDIY]

Currently running Tasmota on my ifan myself but I do know there are ESPHome configs out there for it, just a little more advanced though given the various relays and such to lock out for each speed.

[@largepimping]

Yaw Mill? Yah, mon.

[@jasamasa9106]

Doesn’t this work with Pi3?

[@digiblurDIY]

Yep. Probably even works with older slower processors.

[@juliansr0517]

I am stuck at installing the dashboard with docker compose, can anybody help?

[@digiblurDIY]

What's the error?

[@juliansr0517]

@@digiblurDIY When I try to run "docker run --rm --net=host -v "${PWD}":/config -it ghcr.io/esphome/esphome " it says: "Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/bin/esphome", line 33, in sys.exit(load_entry_point('esphome', 'console_scripts', 'esphome')()) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/esphome/esphome/__main__.py", line 1040, in main return run_esphome(sys.argv) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/esphome/esphome/__main__.py", line 1003, in run_esphome return PRE_CONFIG_ACTIONS[args.command](args) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/esphome/esphome/__main__.py", line 517, in command_dashboard return dashboard.start_web_server(args) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/esphome/esphome/dashboard/dashboard.py", line 1507, in start_web_server app.listen(args.port, args.address) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.11/dist-packages/tornado/web.py", line 2207, in l isten server.listen( File "/usr/local/lib/python3.11/dist-packages/tornado/tcpserver.py", line 183, in listen sockets = bind_sockets( ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/lib/python3.11/dist-packages/tornado/netutil.py", line 162, i n bind_sockets sock.bind(sockaddr) OSError: [Errno 98] Address already in use" I have absolutely no idea what I am doing wrong.. I might be dumb; I dont have a lot of experience in this topic and I am new to it so sorry in advance if this is a stupid question

[@digiblurDIY]

Looks like something is already in use there so it can't start. What all do you have running? That looks like you are using docker run and not docker compose?

[@juliansr0517]

@@digiblurDIY I reinstalled everything and somehow now I got it, I got a dashboard but it is not visible in home assistant. Is there a way to create the dashboard in home assistant gui?

[@digiblurDIY]

You could add it into the menu in as if you need it there

[@caseyhoward9101]

Please never say "YAML" again.

[@digiblurDIY]

I don't remember.. Did I use my Yawmill icon too?

[@caseyhoward9101]

@@digiblurDIY Haha.

[@n.r.2258]

ESP Home is a pain in the neck ....Every update has made it worse and worse. Old installations no longer work. I can only advise against using it. ESP Home is only for nerds who have nothing else to do but deal with it. The documentation is also only for "nerds". 👎